English Grammar Day 2014

Join us at the British Library for a day of lectures and debate on the state
of grammar - both in schools and beyond - with public participation welcomed in
an Any Questions session in the afternoon. Participants and speakers include
leading authorities on language use Debbie Cameron, David Crystal, Dick
Hudson, Debra Myhill and John Mullan.

Disputes over language usage and correctness have been going strong ever
since the 18th century. Jonathan Swift’s Proposal for Correcting, Improving,
& Ascertaining the English Tongue (1712) deplored the dangers of
unregulated language, linking jargon and slang with declining morals and poor
social behaviour. ‘Corruption’ in language use has always seemed to mirror the
health of the nation, and Swift’s concerns echo in today’s disputes about the
decline in literacy and reading, abbreviations and altered spellings in texts
and tweets, and changes in the use and meaning of words. In particular, grammar
teaching in schools has lately taken centre stage and divided opinion among
politicians, teachers, linguists, and journalists, as well as the wider
public.

In 2014 teachers are now implementing many changes in the National Curriculum
that they and others are unsure of. Do the government’s new grammar tests pass
muster with linguists? Should schools be discouraging the allegedly ubiquitous
use of forms such as ‘like’ and ‘innit’, or do those words serve some useful
purpose? Whither the apostrophe? Are we allowed to use ‘they / their/ them’ as
the singular impersonal pronoun in sentences such as ‘Every individual has their
own view’, and if not, why not? How do teachers reconcile their own pragmatic
views on what works in the classroom with the directives from the Department for
Education?

Presented by University College London and the University of Oxford in
association with the British Library

Supported by the UCL Faculty Institute of Graduate Studies and the Henry
Sweet Society for the History of Linguistic Ideas